[CS-FSLUG] Distribution: Basic Linux 3.2

[Don Parris]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 23:23:34 -0500
"Christopher Rose" <kf6snj at lycos.com> wrote:

> Ok, I am going to do something useful. I am posting about a linux distro
> that I have been tinkering with and now feel that I am ready to report on.
> 
> For the last several months I have been trying to find a linux distro that
> I can use on my laptop. I tried a few CD installs but they didn't work
> very well once I tried returning the hard drive back to the laptop. I also
> tried Grey Cat Linux, but as nicely as it worked, there were some
> concerns. Amongst them was the fact that Grey Cat requires several
> floppies and it boots from an UMDOS/fat16 filesystem. Hence, though linux,
> it does not use a linux files system (ext2, ext3, old minix, ect..).
> Finally I found a distribution that does work quite well in my laptop.
> That distribution is Basic Linux 3.
> 
> This distribution comes in the form of two floppies. The first floppy is
> boot disk, and the second one contains all the file system information in
> a *.tgz file. The two disks total about 2.88 MB and yet there is
> semi-functional gui and busybox (similiar to the bash shell). It can boot
> to a ram disk or it can be installed. The installation process is pretty
> easy. Use fdisk to create your partitions (primary, swap, etc..). Then use
> e2fsck /dev/hda1(2,3,?) to create and ext2 file system and mkswap
> /dev/hda2 (3,4,?) to create your swap space. then type swapon to activate
> swap space, the type mount /dev/hda1(or what ever partition you are
> installing it on) /hd to mount hda1 and then type install-to-hd to install
> (type yes at prompt). It will ask for disk one and then installs BL3 to
> the hard drive. After install, reboot the computer and then hit ctrl when
> you see lilo and then type hd root=/dev/hda1 (or whatever your partition
> is) and hit enter. Once the hard drive boots, if you want to install lilo,
> type edit /etc/lilo.conf to remove the # from #boot=/dev/hda1 then press
> ctrl x to save this and then type lilo -v to install lilo and then reboot
> the computer again and BL3 should boot up right away without the floppy.
> 
> I participate with the BL3 listserv and have learned from them quite a few
> things about BL3 and I would be glad to share any posts from that listserv
> if it will help somebody here. One post in particular is about what BL1,
> BL2, and BL3 are good for. The one thing thing that all three are good for
> is old 386 and 486 computers that lack the nice little things like CD-ROM,
> large hard drives, fast processors, etc. Basic Linux is perfect for such
> machines (my Toshiba WinBook XP being one such machine). There are even
> some games that can be played on this distro. I haven't been able to play
> lincity since I upgraded from Red Hat 6 to Red Hat 7.2, but lincity is one
> such game that is available for BL3 and I do play on my laptop. Now if you
> need a better kernel, there are two available from the Basic Linux site or
> you may install a slackware 7.1 kernel. Many of the applications from
> slackware 4.0 should be able to work with BL3, but you have to also
> upgrade the glibc files (work in progress for me, need lib.so.6 for
> xspread and xpdf) Still for what BL3 is, it works quite well. I have no
> complaints, especially now that my laptop is working. I just need to
> determine whether I can get the built-in modem to work or if I need to
> install a 10/100 nic into my machine, then download the slackware files
> that will allow it to work on my dsl connection, well nothing on this
> earth is perfect, but I can accept well enough in this case.
> 
> Pax,
> Christopher
> 
> Linux Counter User: #350477
> http://www.counter.li.org
> 
> -- 
I've got an old 486 Toshiba T48?? I haven't used in ages.  It runs Win 95
(originally 3.11, apparently).  I used to use a parallel port hard drive
enclosure to access a 400 MB HDD.  Unfortunately, that no longer works. 
I've been trying to save a little dough to get a refurbished laptop, and
still want to do that.  However, I might try BL3 with the Toshiba.  That
would be interesting.  Don't hold your breath - I'm working on 20 other
things too.  But it's a thought.

Don
-- 
evangelinux    GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/                   http://chaddb.sourceforge.net/
"Free software is like God's love - you can share it with anyone anytime
anywhere."